The European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages has said a trip by 12 delegates to Northern Ireland last March was not "a fact finding visit" conducted on its behalf or on behalf of the European Commission. The delegates were "not necessarily language experts" and their subsequent report was not "official".
The bureau was responding to an article in The Irish Times yesterday, reporting that the delegates failed to find a single speaker of Ulster Scots on their visit.
In its statement on the visit, the bureau said it devoted one day to the Ulster Scots language Society, while the remaining days concentrated on the Irish speaking community in the North.
The visits was part of a programme whereby people from minority language communities in Europe visit other such communities and observe how they promote their own language. Six or seven such visits take place in the EU each year, it said.
